Re-energised Kier tops September contracts league
Kier has bounced back with a winning streak of contract wins after getting its finances back on track.
The firm top September’s contracts league with a haul of 22 project wins, including the £200m Liverpool Bixteth Place office scheme for its in-house property division and a £66m project for Thames Water to modernise Mogden Sewage Treatment Works in Isleworth.
The surge of projects last month also lifted Kier from sixth to second place in the 12-month rolling league table of secured work just behind league leader Morgan Sindall.
Click for full tables
According to data collected by information specialist Barbour ABI, other big project wins included Buckingham Group securing a major warehouse deal for Trixtax at Symmetry Park near Kettering, south of junction 9 of the A14.
Infrastructure works will be completed early next year allowinbg new logistics buildings of up to 1.3 million sq ft to be delivered by late 2023.
The firm also bagged a £45m warehouse job for Prologis at Pineham Buisness Park in Northamptonshire, due to start towards of the end of this year.
Two new warehouses will be built on cleared land at Pineham business park
Among the other big wins Vinci secured a major near £80m deal for student accommodation for the University of the West of England at its Frenchay Campus in Bristol.
Design for UWE blocks which will be the largest Passivhaus student scheme in the country
Phase one of the £200m scheme will initially involve demolishing the existing Carroll Court buildings and constructing 900-bed spaces across three buildings rising to six-storeys.
ISGbagged Millennium Bridge House redevelopment in London
On the civil side Bam Nuttall signed an ECI deal to deliver detailed design and advance works for the £118m Cross Tay Link Road in Scotland.
The new road north of Perth will connect the A9 to the A93 and A94 north of Scone.
Race starts for Sellafield £1bn concrete structures deal
Sellafield’s project delivery team has fired the starting gun on race to find two key delivery partners for a combined concrete structures, groundworks and blockwork package worth £1bn over 18 years.
The tender is the largest to hit the market from a new pioneering procurement model that uses Project 13-style integrated collaborative teams.
The big procurement shake-up is being delivered the Programme and Project Partners (PPP) that are driving forward the clean-up of the Sellafield site in West Cumbria.
This overarching integrated team is made up of a Kellogg Brown and Root (Integration Partner); Jacobs (Design and Engineering Partner); Morgan Sindall Infrastructure (Civils Construction Management Partner) and Doosan Babcock (Process Construction Management Partner), and Sellafield.
Under the new multi project procurement process, key delivery partners will be appointed by the PPP team to carry out the main elements of construction works across the programme.
Contests are already underway for sheet piling partners and building interior fit-out and finishes.
PPP anticipates that two KDPs will be appointed for the concrete structures, groundworks and blockwork package.
Tenderers will be required to set out a predetermined supply chain for the work they will deliver and requiring just over a third to comprise of SMEs.
As part of the process, PPP has enlisted the Swimming with the Big Fish SME Matchmaker Service to broker and develop relationships between those bidding for KDP packages and high performing SMEs able and willing to invest in West Cumbria.
This introduction service is being delivered by quantity surveying and procurement specialists Solomons Europe.
Successful KDPs will be expected to help PPP meet its five ‘Critical Success Factors’, which include cost savings on project baselines, certainty of delivery and rewarding supply chains that achieve agreed outcomes.
Emphasis is also placed on local employment and upskilling the local workforce, along with financial and social investment in West Cumbria.
A full strategy paper outlining the procurement approach, commercial model, timeline, and other important information will be made available to businesses who register their interest by 12pm on Thursday, October 14 by email.
Sale agreed for final £70m stalled Elliott Group scheme
Agreement has been reached for the sale of the last of four stalled Elliot Group schemes after the developer collapsed into administration following the arrest of founder Elliot Lawless.
Administrators for the company’s £70m hotel scheme on Norfolk Street in Liverpool’s Baltic tech district have exchanged contracts with the scheme’s original investors.
HBG Insolvency Ltd will now put the sale proposal before the High Court for final ratification.
The 306-bedroom property had secured planning permission and construction had commenced, before ceasing when investors decided not to continue funding the project following Lawless’s arrest in December 2019.
Lawless said: “When my schemes were placed in administration I made a promise that I would work ceaselessly to help secure each site’s sale and protect the interests of investors, so I am delighted that my final stalled scheme is to be acquired by its original investors.
“The process, as with the other administrations, has been handled by a third party under strict rules and I sympathise with investors whose bids for The Residence and Infinity weren’t successful.
“It has not been easy but with flexibility and good will on all sides the administrators have been able to ensure that all of my stalled projects will now be placed in the hands of new owners and move forward to completion.
“What this latest deal reinforces is that my projects were always very good schemes in prime locations. I’ll take considerable satisfaction from seeing them completed. If you take a look at the outstanding job done by the investors who bought Aura in Liverpool, for example, you can see that the original vision for each project can still be delivered in the right hands.”
No charges have ever been brought against Lawless and he says he “looks forward to Merseyside Police concluding their investigation.”
Willmott Dixon wins £10.9m Oxford decarbonisation deal
Willmott Dixon will work with Oxford City Council on a £10.9m project to reduce carbon emissions from public leisure centres.
The programme will see water and air source heat pumps installed at four leisure centres around the city.
The work is part of the council’s aim to become a Zero Carbon Council across its own estate and operations by 2030, with leisure centres responsible for around 40% of current building carbon emissions.
Richard Poulter, Managing Director from Willmott Dixon’s Central South region said: “We are proud to be working alongside Oxford City Council on this exciting carbon reduction project, which will deliver a step change in the mitigation of fossil fuels in the local community.
“The programme is close to our heart and through our own 2030 ‘Now or Never’ Sustainability strategy, we have committed to achieving net zero operational carbon on all our new buildings and major refurbishments within the next decade.
“Working in tandem alongside the council, Fusion Lifestyle and the local community, we will deliver the works as swiftly as possible while ensuring the highest standards are met, ensuring the leisure centres provide the best possible facilities once the works are complete.”
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